America's Ebola response is 'madness'

Editor’s note: This is the first of a series of columns on the Ebola epidemic by radio talk-show host Michael Savage, who has a Ph.D. in epidemiology.

The madness of Ebola is only matched by the madness of America.

Let’s start with common sense. If a member of your family has the viral illness known as the common cold, what do you normally do? Well, you try to avoid contact with that person. Certainly, you want to avoid them sneezing on you or the droplets from their cough spreading anywhere in the house.

You both isolate and avoid an infected patient. Well, Ebola is a viral illness. Common sense would dictate you isolate and avoid contact with patients, because in this case the disease is often fatal.

And yet, the morons who are running America are bringing infected patients to America, allegedly to treat them, but we all know it is an untreatable disease. It can only be managed. The entire story of bringing these Ebola patients from West Africa to America stinks to high Heaven. There is much more involved.

But let us look at what Ebola is. Ebola is one of several viral hemorrhagic fevers. In the field of epidemiology, it is known as a non-vector-borne infectious disease. That means it is not transmitted by an insect or other vector. Other similar non-vector-borne infectious diseases you may have heard of would include:

Hantavirus, contracted from rodent droppings

Lassa fever

Marburg virus

Hemorrhagic diseases that are vector-borne, transmitted by mosquitoes, include dengue and yellow fever.

While each of these diseases is different, they are all hemorrhagic fevers, with some common symptoms including flushing of the face and chest; small red and purple spots; bleeding; swelling caused by edema; low-blood pressure; and shock. In some cases symptoms are more dramatic than in others.

It should be noted that there has been a bioterrorism potential related to the hemorrhagic fever viruses. Some of them can be transmitted to humans through a respiratory route. Although there is no current evidence that any of these viruses have been weaponized or developed into a biological weapon, all of them are considered by military medical planners to have a potential to be disseminated through the air to be weaponized or to be used with other agents that could weaponize them.

Why are they bringing patients to Atlanta when they should be treated in Africa?

Well, I think you have to look at the money involved. But before we follow the money as to what’s involved in terms of the potential vaccine profits, let us look at the disease itself.

Ebola is one of various viral hemorrhagic fevers. There have been notable hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in history. In Cocoliztli, Mexico, in 1545, there was an outbreak that wiped out a great part of the population. There was the great yellow fever epidemic of 1793 in Philadelphia in which nearly 10 percent of the population of 50,000 succumbed to the disease. In Congo in 1998 to 2000, there was an outbreak of Marburg virus disease. And, of course, there is now the ongoing West Africa Ebola outbreak with record numbers already dead and spreading rapidly.

So here are some questions. All these experts on television are telling us it’s perfectly safe and we need not worry. And the lamest answer comes when you ask them how the medical doctor who they brought to Atlanta contracted Ebola in Africa. Their answer is always the same: “Oh, an accidental needle prick.”

This is nonsense. It is possible they were experimenting on the poor African villagers and the disease got out of control. Now, they are bringing in highly infectious patients into this nation that is Ebola-free. In doing so, they are violating the primary rule of contagion: isolation. They are now using this: “We must fight our fears or remain compassionate.” This story is unraveling.

Now let’s follow the money. A recent USA Today article had this headline: “NIH to launch early Ebola vaccine trial in September.” What does that mean? Well, what it means is this: Until the current outbreak of Ebola, many in the industry said there was not a great need for an Ebola vaccine, because the virus only caused 10-100 infections per year. But that’s all changed.

Now, according to Dr. Scott Lillibridge, assistant dean at the Texas A&M School of Public Health, “The current outbreak has somewhat changed our thinking.” More people now think the world needs an Ebola vaccine. Why? Because there’s going to be a call to vaccinate entire populations of nations or to vaccinate health workers in hospitals and clinics to protect them from getting and spreading the virus.

So what’s going on is that the FDA is making exceptions to its usually stringent rules for drug development in evaluating treatments for Ebola. And as a result, they’re speeding forward with a stage I trial with a man-made antibody treatment.

We all know that for the full-blown Ebola hemorrhagic virus, there is no drug on the planet that is going to cure it. But as of now, in the monkey model there are drugs that can arrest early stages of infection. Why have they brought an infected doctor and another patient from the area of contagion to Emory University in the U.S. when these individuals could treated just as well in Africa? Perhaps they are using these two patients as guinea pigs in a trial for a new vaccine from which billions are to be made if successful.